


Because

by devils_first_angel



Series: Valentine's Day/Anniversary Specials [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Happy Valentine's Day!, as last time, except maybe, there isn't really a way to tag this, this is very personal...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:56:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22702981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devils_first_angel/pseuds/devils_first_angel
Summary: Happy Valentine's Day! This is a Collection of stuff I wrote recently… I hope you don't mind. Wouldn't be me if I weren't still writing about it, I guess...
Series: Valentine's Day/Anniversary Specials [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1631515
Kudos: 2





	Because

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sam_Clover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sam_Clover/gifts).

> Heyah… Yeah, it's time for me to be sappy again. Sorry. It's all explained within the text. This is a little longer than last time, but no pressure. You know the deal.

“Welcome to another year...! You’re still alive, still well, better than last year around this time even...”   
“I have written something again...”   
“...You have _not_ !”   
“Have, too.”   
“Oh goddamnit, Jo, you... Well, what’s it called this time? _’Another_ declaration whatsoever’?”   
“Very funny.”   
“Oh, spit it out then! What is it?”   
“’Because I still love you’.”   
“What, really? You can’t do that!”   
“But it seems fitting.”   
“I’m not sure that’s appropriate.”   
“But it’s the truth, and it adds to last year’s bit.”   
“No, I think you should shorten it.”   
“Shorten it?”   
“Yes.”   
“Like how?”   
“Like ‘Because’. That’s enough.”   
“I can’t do that. That leaves it so... open...”   
“But isn’t that exactly what you want to do.”   
“...”   
“Well?”   
“’Because’ it is then...”

So, I’m doing this 365 days of writing prompts thing because I need to regularly write and practise on just anything. And I wanted to make a collection of thoughts that kept coming back because – well... Because I wanted to write for today again. Because writing about it feels like the right thing to do. So I hope you don’t mind that I did it or any of the things written here either. I hope you don’t mind because I may be writing this for me mainly, maybe, but really I want to write it more for us. Because I want to write everything I write for _us._ That’s just how things are. I write for the prompts daily and it doesn’t always turn out to be about you. This is just a collection of the days when my thoughts carried me to you and I wrote about it. So here’s to you, from me. Because words have always been my strongest side when they’re written. And this deserve nothing less than my strongest side.  
You can find the prompt list I’m using here, in case anyone was wondering: https://thinkwritten.com/365-creative-writing-prompts/

2nd January 2020   
The Unrequited love poem: How do you feel when you love someone who does not love you back?  
Three times I felt I was in love  
The first time I fell   
He pushed me, jumped with me   
Never alone, we fell all the way   
And I knew he was there   
But little I knew   
That he had never planned to catch me

Another time was but infatuation   
A draw, a spark, some chemistry   
I hesitated, who knows what would have become   
Friendship is holy   
I burned my heart, not very, just a little   
But never burned my fingers   
And it was good, for my fingers I need to write

Then one time I burned   
Burned with all I was   
Fire was slowly set to me   
Part by part   
For she offered her hands   
I took them, mine shaking   
And she waited for me to let myself fall   
So we could fall together   
Not alone   
And not fear the landing   
For together we would burn so bright   
That we would burn out before hitting the ground   
Like shooting stars in the atmosphere

That first time I knew   
I had no doubt   
Love coaxed me into love

That second time I feared   
And rightfully so   
But excitingly so, on edge and alive

That one time then   
The one that really mattered   
The only one that did   
Things were different   
For there was that draw   
And that offer of hands   
Shortly after I felt   
But long before I understood   
How afraid I was love may not be returned   
How I yet knew deep down that it was   
And how afraid I was even so, not knowing   
Thank God the day came when I then understood   
That my love only dares grow where another grows with it.

3rd January 2020   
The Vessel: Write about a ship or other vehicle that can take you somewhere different from where you are now.  
Remember how I told you I had an entire armada once? You named all my ships, put them down, drew them and their positions.   
I wrote a bit once. About the endless ocean. The sea surrounding the edge of all worlds that spreads as far as fantasy could think and beyond and on which nothing is impossible. I wrote a small bit that I never shared with you. I never finished it. It was a long time ago, I think. About us. You and me, sharing a life, in one of those worlds. Of how something impossible had drawn you to the ocean, something you felt you had lost. And an impossible thought had come to us from the ocean to promise you that you could get that something back if only you searched the ocean far enough. And I told you how untrue that was and how all impossibilities may seem endlessly possible on the ocean, but none of it is real. Not as real as we and our life were. But you went there. And I wrote this little piece, where all that had already happened, and now, some time later, I set out with all my ships to find you. To get you back. Because I would take on all troubles, dangers and impossibilities, even eternity on the endless ocean, just to find you.   
And I do not remember where the story would have gone. I think I had no ending in mind yet. Just that knowledge, deeply rooted inside my character, that she would have to find you, and then you would forever sail the endless ocean together as pirates, overcoming all obstacles. That she would do that for you if you couldn’t live without the impossibilities. That she would do that, even if she had begged you to stay away from the ocean before. She would do it all for you.   
And sometimes, in good summer nights, I dream of that ship with which we sail a world of endless possibilities made of fantasy; pirates, free and wild and forever young and together. And then I can taste the salt water as I climb a pole to take care of the sails and there is a scent of fire burning in the far distance with a hint of cinnamon in it. And I smile. Because that’s the scent of adventure and it wouldn’t be if it weren’t for you by my side.

13th January 2020   
The Letter: Write a poem or story using words from a famous letter or inspired by a letter someone sent you.  
‘The boys send their regards,’ she said   
It held a thousand things   
How once at sea the sun would set   
Or how she laughs and sings

‘And even if I fall again’   
The mutual promise says   
It makes me think of how much then   
It never shall be less

I think of nineteen answers oft’   
Of words that healed my heart   
Brought back my smiles from tense to soft   
And fixed what felt apart

‘Twelve people, I am blessed,’ she smiled   
And I smiled right along   
I’m joyous as a happy child   
That to them I belong

19th January 2020   
Great Minds: Write about someone you admire and you thought to have (had) a beautiful mind.  
The thing about soulmates is that it’s not just the soul.   
Her mind was of the meticulous perfection of a Van Gogh painting. To the eye that mind’s complexion could change like the colour of the sea on a day that begins with sunshine, but will turn into a storm; or like the colours of the leaves of an entire forest change in autumn. Her mind could overwhelm you like a massive waterfall, spilling over the cliffs of your being, dragging along what isn’t fixed, smoothing over time what first was sharp; or like a swarm of fireflies slowly rising into the air and settling around you in the night, filling the forest and field with a light unlike anything else. It could lash out quickly like an exotic dance, unpredictable in its beauty, or like the sparks fleeing from the top of a huge fire, shooting and hissing up into the air with great speed. Her mind could take you in like sand on the shore when you let your feet slowly be buried by it with the help of the waves; or snow, silently falling over night and covering your roof two metres thick. It could move the world around her in melodies like hesitant rain drops falling onto lakes, glass windows and metal buildings; or like an unknown bird, leisurely flying by the world, whistling a tune nobody knows yet. Her mind could reach out to you, gracefully, like a cat stretching her paw towards you with a purr; or like an elephant, lightly grazing you with his trunk. It could sink in darkness like your eyesight when you sink into the depth of the oceans, slowly and heavily; or like the sky above Pompeji, suddenly and fatally. Her mind could shatter your world like an explosion at the core of a system; or like an earthquake from right beneath you. It could set you back upright, like a hand offered to help you onto your feet; or like a trampoline, throwing you right back upwards with the force your fall had. Her mind was of the complexity of mathematics, grown and woven into nature, waiting to be uncovered, understood; or of the complexity of the perfect made, built by the human hand to challenge and deceive you. It could draw you towards it, like a magnet poled to be your opposing piece; or like the scent of home can lead the lost child home. Her mind was strong and powerful like a whale ruling the sea from bottom to top; or like a complex of micro-organisms, having come to work together. And it was absolute, like time and space and their relativity; or like fantasy and love in their vulnerability.   
Above all, however, it was beautiful. A beautiful mind. And it still is. The way a lover’s smile is the most awe-awaking, the heart of the one waiting for you at home is the biggest, the words of the one who always listens to you are the sweetest – that same way, the mind of your soulmate is the most beautiful to you.

31st January 2020  
The Professor: Write about a teacher that has influenced you.  
Mr. T. was exceptional in his way. Exceptionally disliked, that’s for sure. Exceptionally stubborn in quite a lot of his opinions. Exceptionally inconsiderate of how fragile a teenager’s life can be.   
He wasn’t a bad teacher though. Really, he was one of the best I’ve ever had, measured by how much he taught me. I can’t say for sure, though, how much of this he meant to teach me.

He taught me to take a careful look, to dig deeper, to figure out what really is the matter.   
He taught me to stand in other people’s shoes.   
He also taught me to be grateful, and to understand what I really had.   
He taught me to fight back, get up and object, not let myself be silenced, and to fight for others as well. Because he told me to be considerate and understanding of others where he wasn’t. To speak for the people he wouldn’t listen to, whether he meant to be like that or not.   
He taught me to be unrelenting where it’s important and ready to compromise when necessary.   
He taught me to be patient with things we can’t help until we can help them.   
He taught me to put my heart into things I care for, and not to take success for granted.   
He taught me to believe in myself, to challenge myself, to work on myself, not to put myself down, and not to overestimate myself.   
He taught me not to be cowardly, not to hesitate, but to think and to come prepared.   
He taught me to understand how words could be used against me and to use them for myself.   
He taught me when being cleverer than your enemies and when being louder than them is what counts.   
He taught me not be arrogant, not to be proud, not to be careless and all the things he could be when he didn’t pay attention.   
He taught me to always have a joke at hand, and to always fire back, to banter.   
He taught me not to believe the superior that tells me to give up, not to listen to the authority that says I can’t make it.

He never taught us a thing about love, about care, about true empathy and devotion. And therefore, he could never have taught me all these things if I hadn’t had all that love and devotion sit right next to me. Because in truth, my teacher in those classes was not so much the man standing before us, but rather the girl sitting next to me. The girl that fought back, that always beat him where it came to sass, that objected to his carelessness and taught me to understand when he silenced us just so we would fight harder. The girl that made me want to dig deeper, see what really is the matter, to stand in her shoes and understand, to fight with her and stand by her side. The girl I learned to be grateful for and not take for granted. The girl who took more force from her love than he ever could from his carefully balanced ignorance and superiority. That girl taught me all that which Mr T. could not have taught as strongly without her. And when she had left, I fought her fight, with all the weapons he had given me, wielding them with the power she had taught me to use.   
She teaches me to this day. I would just never have understood it so well, had it not been for our shared lessons with Mr T. Today, I understand.

2nd February 2020   
Jewellery: Write about a piece of jewellery. Who does it belong to?  
It was that same year, the big one, the one in which things first changed forever, remember? 2014. Our confirmation – my brother and mine. 1st June. It feels like ages ago, well, it is really. But it feels so much longer than it seems like it should. How little time had passed. February, then May, then June... And you said you had spent way too much money on a present for me, totally not trying to express your love in a material present – something along the lines of that, if I remember correctly...

Now, there are very few pieces of jewellery in my possession which I care about. There is the silver cross that my mother gave me for my eighteenth (nineteenth?) birthday that I always wear. I own one part of a three-part necklace the three parts of which form a heart together, the pieces signifying who of my siblings and I is the eldest, middle, and youngest one. I also own few pieces of jewellery that I would never give away because they’re all I personally have left from my grandmother. But I hardly wear them. And there is a stone from the shore with a hole in it that someone pulled a leather band through, but to my shame, I’ll have to say that I hardly wear it either. But that’s because I tend to stick with one necklace, and that’s the cross.   
And then, there is the only bracelet I ever really wear, on special occasions. It’s blue like the sky on that hot summer day we spent in Frankfurt, when we looked up and you said that the sky was so blue it looked like the colour could not be natural. I imagine blue was the choice because blue can always match my eyes. It’s closed by two metal loops. You have to guide one through the other carefully so that the magnets on opposite sides can meet and it stays closed. This way, when wearing it, the metal loops form a horizontal eight against the inside of my wrist.   
Curious, now that I think about it, I think I have seen that sign drawn on your wrist before. It may sound strange to say, but it may be the only thing made of metal I feel comfortable having pressed against the inside of my wrist. And it feels right to me. It’s a bit of a struggle to help the magnets come together, but once they click together, there’s the horizontal eight – the symbol for eternity.... Hey, totally not trying to prove my love by over-interpreting a piece of jewellery you gave me as a present, years ago...

It’s a beautiful bracelet. I wear it on special occasions to this day. And when I put it on, I smile to myself. Because it is mine, but in memory and significance it belongs to you as much as to me.

8th February 2020   
Coffee & Tea: Surely you drink one or the other or know someone who does- write about it!  
Coffee. I don’t drink coffee. My stomach doesn’t like it and my entire system can bear very little caffeine in the form of coffee, apparently. I only drink coffee in extreme situations. At youth hostels, funnily enough. That’s a different story though.   
We used to say that one day it would be us, living together. And then, when one would bring a partner home, the other would make coffee for them in the morning and kindly offer them breakfast before showing them out. It seemed like the most normal thing to me, that we would have coffee in our house, for guests, although none of us drinks coffee.   
You were the one who showed me to tea, you know? I think I used to tell you, in the early days, why I don’t really drink tea – well, now I do. I didn’t then. When I was a child, we would only be served tea when we were sick. Tea with honey and some apple juice, to make it sweeter, for we loathed the bitter taste of it. And that’s what the taste of tea was to me: bitterness and feeling sick. Don’t blame our parents, they tried.   
I think I only _really_ switched to tea when my body decided not to properly digest milk anymore. But I probably wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for you. You remember that time when we tried to describe to each other how the other smells to us? And I said your scent has that sweet quality to it. Sweet like vaguely burned paper, like moist mown grass, like rain after a dry hot summer month, somehow. And sweet like tea, when you serve and drink it right. You showed me that tea is part of being a good host, that tea means making yourself comfortable, that tea means feeling at home, that tea means warmth inside and out, and sweetness all about. The way the perfect cup of tea tastes from the lips of the one you love on a cozy, lazy day that started with a drawn out smile on a late morning – that’s the way your scent has a sweet quality. Such warmth and sweetness you added to my life, bringing tea with you. That’s how I learned to love tea.

10th February 2020   
What You Don’t Know: Write about a secret you’ve kept from someone else or how you feel when you know someone is keeping a secret from you.  
It speaks to the heart that truly great love comes with the bearing of great sorrows. I think that I must have begged all those that I have loved so strongly, that I have loved so painfully, not to lie to me. Not to lie to me anymore. To please stop and be honest with me and tell me how they feel. It hurts being lied to. But only once you understand that it happened. Perhaps because it is difficult for the human heart that loves, that loves, ready to bear all sorrows, to learn to understand all different reasons for why we are lied to by those we love and that love us. It hurts worse not to know. Not to be told. To be kept in the unknown, treated with silence, lied to by a smile.   
But that is the thing about the truth. It cannot hurt people if it doesn’t touch them. And so we think that not telling someone that terrible thing will be better for them. It’s not a lie. We just spare them the terror of a truth we feel awfully burdened to bear. That same way, being lied to doesn’t hurt the one that’s being lied to – not until they know. Just, some things don’t need to be said. Some things are never secrets. Some things are clear.

I was standing underneath a parasol on a strawberry field when I realised that truth. People were hiding with me, barely keeping away from the rain coming down around us like the skies would crash down to earth any moment. Above us, in the sky, thunder and lightning tore the fabrics of the atmosphere apart. And my world was falling apart, threatening to tear down my mind and heart with it, over the revelation of a bike accident that hadn’t been one. And there were these lines caught in my head: “Raspberry fields forever” and “Hat er—hat er nicht verstanden...” – Because I should have understood. And my world was torn apart by a violent summer storm over a truth that I felt I should have known. But not the lie was crashing my heart and mind. It was the truth. The force of that truth, the pain of it, and with that also the force and sorrow of the heavy love that came with it. Of finally holding the truth in my heart, of that something finally falling into place that had seemed off. Because with great love comes great sorrow and now that this great sorrow had caught up to me, I understood again how great love is. How it had truly turned out great enough for me to know this great sorrow, to learn of it and learn more love of it.

Because truly, some things are never secret, even when they’re kept from us. Not truly. Then perhaps, that is what makes for a secret. Perhaps that makes a secret, the knowledge buried somewhere deep within us that something is not said, but there, sometimes event a notion, a hunch, of what that something is. And then everything falls into place when we find out. Because that is what secrets do. For we think, secrets being kept from us, that harms us. But truly, perhaps it just gives us the time for layer by layer to fall to uncover great love, so great we slowly have to learn the sorrow that may come with it, to bear it fully, embrace it all, alight with it from head to toe.

I have felt, always, that this way secrets worked for us. Two times I set us back, both times I felt you seemed to know beforehand. And when I didn’t tell you something, it was not ready yet to come between us, and you knew and understood. And we would coax it out of one another one step at a time. It seems magical, that, how we have always been great at communication. Maybe because we always understood how secrets are truly supposed to work.

Twice, also, you told me how you felt. And I think back to how I knew each time. To how there was that something, that I thought to be a hunch often, but that was truly my returned feelings for you, I thought later. Right now I think that perhaps this feeling was the one of those secrets, of that learning to love, of that hunch of what is not yet said, but already there, of what we’re taking our time to understand together.   
The first time, I played with the thought, and thought it my curiosity, and then my prejudice to the first girl like you I had met. But the day you gave me that letter, ‘Open at home, in your room, alone.” I took it home and my heart beat in excitement over lunch before I ran upstairs. It took me years to understand how excited I was because I had hoped for this, not quite understanding it myself. And now I’m here, again remembering how I had known, before I read, what it enclosed. How I had, for so long, already understood, and yet not quite because of who I was at the time. But I had known, it was no secret to me, so as it was disclosed, I could grow to understand it.   
A second time it must have been in chat. And I had known, yes truly I had, but I hadn’t even realised how well I knew until I read those words. That, indeed, you were not over me. And I was befallen by that feeling again, that had caught me when I read those lines back in the day that made my heart beat fast and then stand still, with the moment of a secret that never was one, finally brought to light. And then I knew I had suspected it.   
But only that time much later I truly understood, standing on a strawberry field in a heavy summer storm, the world around me and the world inside me seemingly falling apart for a timeless fraction, but eventually not, that this is how I came to understand. I came to understand the grief of the moment a secret is revealed, and the love a truth so carefully grown contains.

So how do I feel when someone’s keeping a secret from me? I know they know I wish I knew. And I trust them. Because – how do I feel keeping a secret from them? I feel that I have to understand the grief this means to me before disclosing it to them. So that our love can truly and beautifully grow with it together, once I have understood. And I trust them to understand the same, feel the same, learn the same. And I trust them to love me. Keeping a secret can mean great sorrow. Great sorrow comes with great love and with great sorrow greater love. And so I trust the secret. Even if it may shatter me, for just a timeless fraction’s moment. Because ever summer’s great thunder storm will end, and strawberries will grow again.

11th February 2020   
Warehouse: Write about being inside an old abandoned warehouse.  
She remembered this place. She had been here before. It must have been years since then, she thought now, but she couldn’t say how many it had really been for sure... The warehouse stood lonely, big and abandoned at the edge of the forest. As it always had. That is, if she remembered correctly, but this she was pretty sure about. It was as run down a building as you could imagine, even more run down than back when she had first been here. Graffiti graced the walls, but even the latest graffiti left on it had to be over a decade old by now. And it couldn’t have been that long since that day. Could it...?   
There was more of the roof left than one would expect from such an old abandoned building – yet, not enough of the roof that a sane person with a healthy instinct of self-preservation would enter it. It looked like it could collapse into dust, ash and rust any moment and wouldn’t even make a sound. She smiled. Thinking back now, she would never have entered it, had she taken a close look at it that night. But it had been dark and... Well. She now knew that it was a lot more stable than it looked. And yet... A voice inside of her – probably the remainders of that instinct of self-preservation, interesting that that voice would show up now of all things, she hadn’t heard it in months after all – quietly warned her not to enter the warehouse.... But then, maybe that had less to do with the state the building was in and more with that faint aching of her heart that came with the memories this place triggered...   
She startled, shook out of her thoughts by a single tear that had suddenly made its way down from the corner of one eye to her chin. She wiped it off with the back of her index finger. Curious, she hadn’t cried in months either. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and took a deep breath and she stepped forward. She paused again. This shouldn’t be so difficult, at least she hadn’t expect it to be. Time to get a grip, really. Swallowing hard, she grabbed the door handle of the last functioning door with both hands and finally swung the huge door open.

She slowly, but surely stepped inside the space. It seemed to look exactly as it had looked in her memory: graffiti on old stone walls, a rundown corrugated iron roof, rests of metal, cardboard and garbage lying around amongst plants hesitantly growing through the cracks in the floor. Metal bars could be found at the longer sides and underneath the rood where lamps hung from them that must have been dead for many years by now. Small windows graced the side from which she had entered, too high to reach and too small to let much light in, but the sun came in through the holes in the roof. Rests of broken window glass was left in only a few of the gaps. Rusted and rotten rests of metal and plastics spoke of a venting system that must once have been in place and partly uninstalled as whoever had owned this warehouse left it behind decades ago.   
She stepped forward, stopping in the middle of the room and turned around. A sudden bark of laughter escaped her lips before she could stop herself. Someone had written the number 13 on the inside of the door she had stepped through in huge letters with red paint. That was new. She stepped forward, back to where she had entered, and let her hand touch the number. The paint definitely wasn’t fresh, but couldn’t be older than a few months. She smiled. It seemed like a cheap joke to her, but somewhat of a good sign.

She turned back around and made towards a far corner of the building. It was the only corner of the warehouse at which the roof didn’t leak too much to let the wind in or keep the rain out, she knew that from first-hand experience. She stared at the space where the two walls met and an ancient red graffiti spoke of some socialist ideals. Moss had grown over part of it. The corner still looked the same though. Pieces of cardboard covered a greater part of the floor, looking comparatively young and dry. It took her a moment before movement came back into her and she stepped onto the cardboard and kneeled down in front of the wall. Her fingers followed the outline of the graffiti, scraping off moss in a few places, until she found what she was looking for, close to the bottom of the graffiti. Someone had carved something into the old stone. “S & J.” And next to that, a date. It was barely visible anymore. Whoever had carved the letters into the stone, had obviously not bothered so much anymore when adding the date. But when she peeled a little more moss off the wall and let her fingers glide over it carefully, she could still read it. She smiled. So it had really been that long? Perhaps that was for the better. If it hadn’t been so long already, maybe she wouldn’t be able to here finally find what she was looking for.

She sighed and got up. Half-way back into the centre of the room, she stopped yet again, however, and turned back around. She stared at the space at the wall where their initials were carved into the wall. Memories flooded her mind, and she thought she could feel tears burning in the corners of her eyes again. It seemed to her, for just a moment, like it was that night again, and they were sitting close together with their backs against the wall, hiding from the storm underneath a blanket that was hardly broad enough for one of them. And they were staring into the abandoned space, scarcely lit by a torchlight running out of battery, a three candle flickering in the wind coming in from where the roof was broken, and lightning occasionally striking in the night, always accompanied by thunder more or less far away. Her heart was beating fast and she was shivering, but laughing – and she couldn’t tell if any of it was in hysteria, in excitement, fear or boundless joy. And they were staring out into the space before them, yelling their dreams into the night, whispering ideas to one another, laughing and making up stories about what this place could be, and of what it was to just them. And then, much later, they must have fallen asleep, because she remembered waking up, sun shining on her face through the cracks in the ceiling, looking around and finding her companion carving their initials into the wall with a broken key and she had smiled and turned around and loudly said into the space that this was the kind of abandoned warehouse that she would like to turn into an art studio one day, to signify to the other that she was awake. And her companion had turned around to her and laughed and agreed and run around the room making plans of how to use it as an art studio while she now wrote the date underneath their initials.

She blinked, shaking off those old memories. No more tears, not now. Not today. Today could not be a day for tears because today she had to find what she was looking for. Today, she had to finally succeed. Because if this wasn’t it, she had no idea where else to go.   
She stalked back to where she had come from and carefully, but firmly closed the last functioning door, making sure it would stay shut. She then proceeded on to the other far end of the warehouse, the wall furthest away from where their initials had survived the years. She let her hand roam over the wall, getting rid of a few plants and rests of flaked paint that came off easily. She looked back into the room once more, taking in the silence that hung over these parts of the wood as it seemed to hang over most of the world these days. It settled into the warehouse lightly and made for an atmosphere of peace despite the abandoned-ness of the place. Taking a deep breath, she pulled a device out of the leather bag she was carrying with her. It was of a round shape, a green-ish light distinctly flickering from its centre and various parts of it glowing in other colours around it. She didn’t understand much of the mechanisms behind it. Once, some time ago, she had sought to acquire the skills of magical engineering, but that had been before it was outlawed and she had had to fight for her survival, and found that other skills helped her out more on the black markets... Nevertheless, she trusted this device. She had to. It had been hard enough to get hold of it. And although she understood little of what exactly it did, she understood well enough what the effect of it was. And that was exactly what she needed.   
She planted the device against the wall – it easily stuck against it – and pressed what she hoped to be the right order of buttons at the side of it. Then, she bit her lip and nervously waited. It took about one and a half minutes – she had already been on the edge of starting to pace in impatience – before the light in the centre of the circle shifted from its green-ish quality to a more pink-ly red. She gasped and had very nearly jumped into the air cheering with relief and gratitude, but she remembered to keep quiet in time and hurried to grab and hold onto the device firmly with her stronger right hand.   
It took about another three minutes for the process to really start and when it did, she tried hard to keep her eyes open, but the device started to make a buzzing sound and suddenly the warehouse around her started to turn, seemingly in one directions, but then in all directions and dimensions at once, picking up speed, and when she opened her eyes again, the silence was gone and so was the warehouse.

No, it wasn’t, she reminded herself. It was still the warehouse. The first thing she noticed, strangely, was the difference on the walls. They were the same old stone walls, but someone had covered most of the graffiti with murals or added paintings or plants, creatures or abstract forms to it. She blinked at the walls and stared at a painting of what seemed to be a bear, but with features of a duck, as she suddenly startled. Her thoughts seemed to come back to her and she remembered the sound. Looking around, the main difference in the warehouse became very obvious to her very quickly: It wasn’t abandoned. The warehouse itself was still the same, broken roof, windows, doors, cluttered with cardboard and remains of a venting system, but this warehouse was not empty. In it, filling it out nearly completely, stood a huge piece of machinery, parts of which were working, moving and making a number of sounds that merged together into a harmony of buzzing and roaring.   
Swiftly, she took the device off the wall, slipped it back into her bag, and ducked behind the end of the machine that already covered most of her. When the machine was working, that meant that somebody must be there to look after it. She tiptoed to the corner where the wall she was standing against met the wall with the door from which she had entered. From here, she could see the entire machine. It was huge, only left some space on the other side of the room, that was shut off with an improvised curtain. The machine consisted of parts of metal and other materials she couldn’t possibly name, was differently high and looked differently stable in different places. Many parts of the machine didn’t seem to be entirely connected yet and although some parts of it were working, they didn’t interact with other parts that they seemed to be supposed to interact with. She didn’t understand half of it and didn’t even bother speculate what any of it could be fore. Instead, she carefully crept along the far wall and slipped past a gap in the curtain that separated the machine from the other side of the room. Here, there seemed to be a living area. More concrete pictures covered the wall, shapes of people, distant facial features that she thought to recognise. In the corner, fabrics covered the floor, making for an improvised bed where the cardboard had been. She crouched down in front of it and could clearly make out their initials and the date against the wall. The carving must have been amplified to be read so clearly from this distance. In the next corner, a kettle and a pan stood next to what seemed to be a handmade fireplace. An old leather suitcase and a wooden trunk stood near the curtain. She didn’t dare looking inside. Neither the suitcase nor the trunk seemed familiar, but that didn’t have to mean anything.   
She tiptoed around the area to where the curtain would lead her to the other side of the machine and carefully glanced through another gap in the fabric. The other side of the machine looked to her pretty much like the first side, just even less finished. At what she spotted next, a smile crept onto her face. A few metres from her, a pair of legs showed from underneath the machinery where the owner of the legs had crept underneath it to work from the inside.

As quietly as she could, she tiptoed out of her hiding place and made her way over to the legs. In coming closer, she could hear the worker whistle a vague tune and she smiled. Yes, she knew that song very well. As she reached the point where the legs showed, she carefully stepped around them. A plethora of different tools was scattered on the floor, only a few of which she could identify as something resembling tools she knew herself. She carefully picked up one of those that were lying close to the body half-way hidden underneath the machine, loosely held it in one hand, crouched down, and waited.

And really didn’t take very long. After two minutes or so of the worker whistling to herself and humming in consideration of whatever she was doing, she stopped in her movement, clicked her tongue, murmured something unintelligible and moved to push herself out from underneath the machine. Her hands became visible as they grabbed onto the outer rim of the construction and first pulled, then pushed, and when her face, smeared with oil, coal and whatever else is was, came into side, the intruder held out her hand and offered the tool in it to the other.   
“Is this what you need?”   
The question was asked with innocent nonchalance, the face of the worker, on the other hand, was a frozen display of surprise and shock. A moment passed, before the worker blinked, looked down onto the tool in the intruder’s hand, and slowly took it from her. Their hands touched for a brief moment and it seemed to break a tension between them. The worker looked back up, surprise slowly turning into something else on her face.   
“It’s not, actually. I was done down there,” she said in a cautious tone.   
“Hello Sam,” the other replied. “I’m glad to see you, too.”   
“You found me, then.”   
“You’ve made it hard enough.”   
A moment of silence passed between them, Sam smiling sheepishly. “Yeah... I guess...”   
The other conversationally ignored that and picked up another tool, looking at it with faked interest. “I’ve been looking for you for years now. Did you know that?” She looked back at Sam. “What a stupid question, of course you know that. After all, you made sure I wouldn’t find you.”   
Sam blinked, before sitting up. She took the tool from the other’s hand and placed it back down on the ground. Then, she got up onto her feet. “Not sure enough, apparently. You came dangerously close to finding me more than once, I’ve got to admit it. But I never thought you would actually find me eventually.”   
The other made haste to get up and hurry after her as Sam stepped towards the curtain and past it into her living area. “Tea?”   
The intruder scoffed. “Tea? Seriously? What’s the closest I ever got to you? Let me guess: Cherry-Plumb-Hotel? Never thought you might go by the name of Lindsay Lovegood, fair enough that. But what really bugged me is that you just ran away! I found you, contacted you, was kind enough to let you know – and I really thought you would finally answer my questions and talk to me again. But instead, I wait for you to come out and you just disappear into the night!”   
Sam had in the meantime made a fire and put the kettle on. She got back up, wiping the dirt off her face with one of her sleeves. “Joan... I’m sorry, okay?”   
“Oh wow, you’re sorry! Well, I’d say that’s the least, but far from enough!”   
Sam smiled. “Oh c’mon now, you know why I did it! I simply wasn’t ready and I couldn’t put you or anyone in danger before I was! So yeah, I was glad you knew I was still alive, but I couldn’t face you. It would’ve been too dangerous! I’ve told you all of that before this whole ordeal started!”   
Joan crossed her arms in front of her chest, pouting. “Well, yeah... But... You could at least have left a message, at least then. To return mine. So that I wouldn’t think that you’re trying to ghost me from the whole thing or something...”   
Sam sighed. “Yes, maybe... I’m sorry... I had to hurry and I couldn’t talk to you and... well.”   
Joan sighed. “So, what? Are you going to run away this time, too?”   
Sam shrugged. “No, I can’t. It’s taken me forever to set up this space and get so far with my work so this time you’re just going to have to stay and take the risk with me. I really didn’t think you would think of this place, it’s been so long! That you would look in here of all places to find me...”   
“I’ve searched everywhere else.”   
“Hm. I always knew you would probably remember it someday. But even so... How did you make it into the hidden dimension? Took me months to set it up and hide it properly.”   
A mischievous smile. “I know my ways anywhere.”   
Sam grinned. “Yeah, when you want to find me.” She took the kettle off the fire and poured water into two mugs that she had taken out of the trunk, handing one to Joan.   
“So...” Joan mused. “How’s the project going then?”   
Sam smiled. “It’s going places. Soon to be done. And then we can change the world.”   
Joan chuckled. “Well, you haven’t heard it from me, but the resistance is more than ready to do that.”   
“Aren’t they always?” She turned around to put the fire out and Joan looked around the space, her gaze drawn back to the point on the wall where their initials were clearly visible.   
“How could you think it would take me so long to remember this place?”   
“Hm?” Sam turned back around to her. She followed Joan’s gaze and understanding dawned on her features. “Ah. Well... It has been, what... Six years?”   
“Yeah,” Joan mused. “But I would never forget this place... I mean, in a way it’s where it all started, right? I mean, when we first ran away.... And so on. Saying we would always have a place together...”   
“Yeah...” Sam hummed quietly.   
They stared at the wall in solemn silence, steam rising from the mugs in their hands.   
“I missed you,” Joan finally broke the silence. Sam looked at her.   
“I missed you, too.”   
And as if the warehouse had been waiting for it, the air crackled and this feeling of peace settled into it again as the two girls fell into each other’s arms and held another tightly for a long moment.

When they parted, all tension was gone. Sunshine was dripping through the cracks and holes in the roof.   
“So we’re here again,” Joan thought out loud. “About damn time.... So how exactly does this machine of yours work then?”   
Sam laughed. “Come on, I’ll explain it all to you. After all, you’re going to have to give me a hand or two anyway in working on it, now that you’re staying.”   
They made their way back to the curtain in no hurry. “And then we change the world together,” Joan hummed.   
Sam nodded in agreement. “And then, with what I have prepared in here and with what you have prepared out there, we change the world together.”

14th February 2020   
Mirror, Mirror: What if you mirror started talking to you? What might the mirror say?  
Today? Today, it did. My full-length mirror in my room. It said...   
“You look happy.”   
And...   
“You look good.”   
And...   
“Special day still, huh?”   
And then I turned to my bathroom mirror and it rolled its eyes at me knowingly, and said...   
“Welcome to another year...! You’re still alive, still well, better than last year around this time even...”   
And so on...

And I closed my eyes and I remembered a small seal made out of chequered paper, sitting on my book shelf with a sign at its paw saying, ‘It’s ‘cause I need you.’   
And I heard in my head playing the record Because by the Beatles – because that’s just how my mind works, what did you expect?   
It’s always resonated with me, that ‘because.’ Especially whenever it came to us.   
And I sat and wrote and collected, a thousand times ‘because’ – and they all meant the same. Even as they all said different things. Because essentially, that’s what it comes down to. It’s what it’s always come down to and what will always last. It’s what stands still in the rush of the world, in the change of our lives, in the chaos of our times and the tides of our minds. _Because._ Because it’s the essence, and it’s what has me go and it’s there even when I cannot go and no matter what around it stands or falls. It’s been for six years now, and it always will be. Because. I love you.

**Author's Note:**

> What's left to say? Thank you for six years! And a happy Valentine's Day, really. Take care.  
Here's a pun I thought you might like:
> 
> How do you make holy water? You boil the hell out of it.
> 
> Yours  
the devil's first angel


End file.
